The Shootist

"There's a man to see you," she announced. "A Mr. Beckum."

Books was lathering his face. "See me about what?"

"I intended to tell you who he is. I'm well acquainted with your temper. I can still see that poor young reporter flying down the front steps."

"Well?"

"He's an undertaker."

Books put down his brush and mug to turn and look at her.

"We have three in town. He's the best known. I must say he's being a little forward. Of course, you don't have to see him."

He went back to his lather, scowling into the mirror. "It snowed last night," he said.

"Yes. It's melted this morning, though." She could almost hear him thinking.

"Thibido said he was putting a man outside the house at night. Did he?"

"Yes. He strolls up and down across Overland. Most of the time he leans against a tree. I'm not sure how effective it is."

"If it bothers you, I can tell Thibido to take him off."

"No. I don't mind."

He finished lathering. "All right. Send him in."

She hesitated.

"Don't worry, we'll get along. He's probably come by to thank me."

"Thank you?"

His smile was foamy and sardonic. "On behalf of his profession."

When his visitor entered, Books was stropping a razor suggestively on the palm of his hand. "Come in. Have a seat."

"Thank you." Uncertain of his reception, however, and immediately aware of the razor, Beckum remained standing. "I hope you don't mind my stopping by, Mr. Books. That is, I hope you don't think it untimely."

"Not at all. I like to see a businessman with get-up-and-go."

Despite the black he wore, Beckum was the picture of rotund, hog-jowled health. He was practiced in two attitudes: a heartiness which belied the imminence of death and a gravity which underlined the transcience of life. He alternated them like pairs of shoes, getting the most wear out of both.

"I admit to hearing certain—certain unfortunate things about your physical condition, Mr. Books," he said gravely. "I came by to express my heartfelt regret."

Books began to shave. "And?"

"And to discuss something with you. As you know, there are certain—certain arrangements which must be made, and practical folks often make them in advance. That is, we are mortal men, Mr. Books, all of us, and if we are prudent as well, we—"

"What's your proposition?"

"A simple business one, sir. You are a very respected and prominent individual," said the undertaker heartily. "Seeing to the final details for you would attest to the excellence of my mortuary service. To be truthful, the kind of advertising money can't buy. Therefore I am prepared to offer you embalming by the most scientific methods, a bronze coffin guaranteed good for a century regardless of climatic or geological conditions, my best hearse, the minister of your choice, the presence of at least two mourners, a headstone of the finest Carrara marble, a plot of a size and in a location befitting your status, and perpetual care of the grounds."

"For how much?"

"For nothing, sir. For the privilege."

"How much will you clear on the deal?"

"I beg your pardon. You must be joking. I'll be out a very large sum, I assure—"

"In a pig's ass you will."

"I misunderstand you, sir."

Razor arrested, Books paused to consider the reflection in the mirror of the undertaker behind him, who seemed in turn to be mesmerized by the reflection, half lather, half menace, of the gun man before him.

"Here's what you will do, Beckum. Just what they did to Hardin here, after he was gone. I read about it. You will lay me out and let the public in to have a look at fifty cents a head, children ten cents. Then when the curiosity peters out you will pick the gold out of my teeth and wrap me in a gunny sack and stick me in a hole somewhere and hustle your loot to the bank."

"Mr. Books, I assure you—"

"Assure me? What the hell good will your word be when my veins are full of your God damned juice? Who will keep you to it?"

The undertaker shuffled his feet, confused as to which pair of shoes he should be wearing.

Books raised his blade, resumed shaving. "No, here's what you will do, Beckum. I want your guarantee I will have a proper grave. Later. And I want a cut of the proceeds and a headstone. Now. Cash in hand and a stone to be delivered in two days or sooner. I want a small stone, good quality, with this on it—'John Bernard Books 1849-1901.' That's all. No angels or jabbery. Got that?"

"I find such an arrangement distasteful, sir. That is—"

"Or I will go to your competitors and deal with them."

"I see. You're a hard man, Mr. Books."

"Not hard. Alive. And the living drive harder bargains than the dead." Books rinsed his face and dried it with a towel. "I'll have fifty dollars now."

Beckum pinched the tip of his nose. "That's too high. If I deliver a stone and give you fifty, I'm cutting it too thin. I've done some arithmetic, and my guess is no more than three hundred will want to view the remains."

"Three hundred? You underestimate me."

"Shoup and Norton have been a great help, I must say. If you could manage to shoot—"

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thirty's my top, sir."

"Forty. Run an ad in the paper."

Beckum sighed and reached for his wallet. "Very well, forty it is." He handed Books two twenties. "I'll set my stonecutter to work on the inscription at once."

"Two days or sooner," Books repeated. "I am running out of time."

The undertaker put away his wallet and shook a solemn head. "I am grieved to hear it, Mr. Books. I am deeply grieved."

He knew the comings and goings of the house as well by now as the comings and goings of his pain. The boy was out for the evening. He could hear the mother running water in the bathroom down the hall. He gave himself a whore's bath at the washbowl daily, but he would need a real one soon, in a tub, and doubted he could do it by himself.

The salaries paid to the Prince of Wales out of the British treasury add up to $680,000 a year, and he has a private income besides. Nevertheless Andrew Carnegie, the laird of Skibo castle, could buy him out several times over and still have enough left to give away a library or two when he felt like it.

That reminded him. Taking his time, he pulled himself out of the armchair and, working slowly along the brass rail at the foot of the bed, reached the chiffonier, opened the top drawer, and counted his money. There was two hundred dollars from the sale of his horse, and Beckum's forty. And the photographer, Skelly, owed him a portrait and another fifty, plus what he had in his wallet. At this rate he would soon be another Andrew Carnegie.

He closed the drawer, worked his way back to the chair, and taking up the newspaper again, read two filler items:

Rumors that Professor Garner, the monkey talk man, was dangerously ill and in distress in Africa have been denied. He is pursuing his studies in Simian conversation as enthusiastically as ever, and is enduring the deprivations and dangers of life in a savage country with the hope of gleaning from the chatter of the apes some slight addition to the facts of science.

Bishop Potter's proposal to organize a vigilance committee of five thousand to inquire into the causes of New York's rottenness is causing Tammany to tremble in its shoes. Poor old Tammany is having a hard time to bluff through these days.

He was ten years old and riding in a spring wagon behind a team of mules with his grandfather, who was driven occasionally to desperate undertakings. They were making a journey of forty miles and two days across San Saba County to the farm of relatives, cousins. His grandmother had three months previously gone to visit the cousins, and while there had died of a fever and been buried. For the three months of his bereavement his grandfather had brooded. It was not right that his wife should lie in alien soil; he wanted her home again, near him, on the home place. He could not eat, would not rest; he talked to himself. And so, finally, old man and boy set out upon their journey. When they reached the cousins, they dug up the coffin, a plain box of gumwood, and hoisting it into the wagon, started homeward. The sun was hot, the way endless. On the first day the lid and sides of the coffin began to swell. By midmorning of the second day the bloating of the corpse had attained such proportions that nails and gumwood could not contain it. The lid burst open. A great groan escaped, and a stench. They stopped the team and hammered at the lid, in the heat and stench they jumped up and down on it, they danced upon it, ki-yi-ing like crazed Comanches, desperate grandfather and terrified grandson, until they were exhausted, until they vomited, but to no avail. They drove on and, detouring to a village, applied to the blacksmith for help. The smith a mighty man was he, and the coffin was soon sealed tight with iron bands. They took it home then, and reburied her in the shade of a live-oak tree, and put up a simple wooden cross, and his grandfather, whose name was Galen Books, would sit by the grave in the evenings, and chew tobacco, and explain to his wife what they had done, and why.

He burst from dreams and covers, groaning, to sit bolt upright in bed. His longjohns were damp with sweat, but in a moment he was cold, and shivered. He groped for the bottle but could not find it.

With an oath he pulled the lamp chain, blinked in the light, and drinking from the bottle, grimacing at the bitterness, capped it. He looked at his watch, a good gold Elgin with a small diamond centered in the case cover. It was not quite two o'clock in the morning. The last dose had enabled him to sleep for less than an hour.

But this one did not relieve him. Pain grew into agony. The disease was ravaging him now, feeding on its cells to create new cells, extending itself throughout the lower third of his trunk. Pins, needles, scissors, knives stabbed him, were withdrawn, and stabbed again and again. He let himself slide from the bed to the floor and placed his forearms on the arms of the leather chair and rocked his pelvis back and forth as though he were a child riding a hobbyhorse. He yearned to cry out, to wake the house, the town, the world, to the enormity of his suffering.

"Oh Jesus," he whimpered. "Sweet Jesus. What have I done to deserve this? Oh, I can't go on much longer. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ."

The laudanum failed him. Staggering, he stumbled to the closet, swept the curtain aside, found the whiskey on the shelf, uncorked, and poured it down. He put the bottle back and waited, trembling, to be eased.

Suddenly his stomach convulsed. Reeling forward, falling to his knees, he jerked out the slop-jar and vomited, ridding himself not only of the remnants of his supper but the laudanum—he realized too late—as well. And then, emptied, on hands and knees, head hanging over his own spew, teeth chattering with cold, in that animal posture he knew fear for the first time in his adult life.

"Oh God," he whispered. "Oh my God I am afraid to die."

He closed his eyes in fear. Out of nowhere the second line came to him, and in his mind he added it to the first: "Weave a circle round him thrice/ And close your eyes with holy dread…"

He opened them. On the frosted lampshade by the bed, blue, brown, and green birds of paradise seemed to flap contemptuous wings at him.

Fear convulsed to rage. Rage endowed him with a strength he had not felt for days. Erupting up, he snatched the glass compote from the table and hurled it wildly, shattering it against the wall of lilies.

He was unappeased. Lurching to the closet, he tore one of the Remingtons from its holster and, hanging onto the curtain rod, threatened the ceiling with the weapon.

He thought: God! You hear me, God? Maybe I don't believe in you, but you damned well better believe in me! J. B. Books! See this gun? I kill with it! You kill, too, but I make a slicker job of it. I kill bad men, you kill good. I have reason, you don't. You are killing me hellish slow, and I do not deserve such treatment. You wrong me, and I will not be wronged. So let us have it out, God. Face me! Be a man and face me now if you have the guts—stand and draw or back off! God damn you, God, throw down on me and kill me now or let me live!

She did not know him. He did not know her.

To surprise him, she had entered without knocking. He sat in shirt sleeves in a leather armchair on a crimson pillow trimmed with golden tassels.

They haunted each other.

"Johnny?"

"Ma'am?"

She came closer.

"Johnny, don't you know me?"

Suddenly he did. It was her voice. Only her voice was the same.

"Serepta!"

"Yes! Yes!"

She ran to him. He did not rise but lifted both arms and spread them to receive her, and she dropped beside him while he took her in his arms and pulled her close and pressed his face to her hair and they laughed together, softly, and murmured to each other until he held her away so that he could look at her again. There were tears in his eyes.

"My God, I'm glad to have you here, Ser! I thought nobody I ever knew would come see me!"

"Oh, Johnny dear!" She leaned to kiss him on the mouth. "I came as soon as I heard!"

"Here. Sit up here, on the bed, near me."

He helped her. They smiled at each other, and she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Have I changed so much, Johnny?"

"No. You have not. It has been so damned long, that's all."

"Eleven years."

But he had lied to her, gallantly. She was blowsy now, a blowsy, irrevocable thirty-nine. Her face was puffed and lined, and she had slathered on the rouge and powder and plucked her eyebrows into brazen arches. When she removed her bonnet the auburn mane he remembered had been clipped inexpertly to a shag, and rinsed with henna. He was sure he could not have changed as radically. Love had been her life eleven years ago, to give and to take. La, la, la, she had sung beneath him, a song as lovely as that of a mockingbird enraptured by snow. Now her concerns were probably spider webs at the corners of her eyes, a touch of arthritis on a rainy day, perhaps a bunion. His heart reconciled him to this new, this old Serepta Thomas, however, and to the treachery the years had done her. She was here, that was what counted, when he needed her, and he was grateful. He would take today with him to the grave.

"It isn't true, is it? About you?"

"That I have a cancer?"

"Yes."

"God how I loved you, Ser."

"And I loved you. It isn't true."

"It is."

"How long do they give you?"

"Weeks."

"Oh Johnny, no." She turned her head and used her handkerchief again.

"Don't cry, Ser. We all have our time. How did you know?"

"You're famous, and bad news travels fast. I'm living in Tucson now, and the day I heard I got right on the train."

"Good girl."

He took her handkerchief and brushed beneath her eyes. The cloth was frayed, and smelled of fivepenny perfume.

"I must look a sight."

"For sore eyes," he smiled. "Why did you come?"

"Why do you think? To see you again, to be with you. I haven't forgotten, Johnny. I never will."

He took her hands in his. They were chapped. He had lived with her in Tularosa for two years. She had not asked marriage, nor had he offered it, because he was with her one day, gone the next. Then, when he returned one time from Colorado, she had left him for a freighter named Pardee.

"Are you still with Pardee?"

"No. He took off for California last year. Just up and skipped."

"Leaving me for a freighter. There was no future in that. Didn't you know the railroads were coming?"

"Oh, he made good money at first, and he was decent to me. He never carried a gun. Then there was less and less to haul and he started drinking. After that it was the old sad story—I had the same black eye for six months. When it would go to clear up, he'd freshen it."

"Did you have kids?"

"Two. Two girls."

"I'd have given you boys, Ser."

"And a black veil too. I couldn't have stood it, Johnny, watching you go off and worrying were you coming back alive or dead."

"Look how long I lasted."

She shook her head. "I couldn't have stood it. I loved you too much."

"We should have married."

"Spilt milk."

"We should have."

"You never did?"

"No."

"And you're alone. That's just awful. I'm so glad I came."

"So am I." He put her hands to his lips. "Oh God I am."

"Would you still like to?" she asked.

"What?"

"Get married."

"Now?"

"That's something I wanted to talk to you about. Life's bunged me up pretty bad, Johnny. I'm not near forty yet, and no prospects. I had to scrape to buy a train ticket. We could just call in a minister and say 'I do.' I'd have the certificate. I'd have something to go on."

His smile was wry. "Not much. I've sold my horse. I have two guns and a gold watch."

"I'd have your name."

"How far would that take you?"

"A long ways, maybe."

He freed her hands. "How?"

"You're too modest, Johnny. You don't know what a high mogul you are. Shoot, everybody's heard of J. B. Books— everybody talks about you. You're in the papers all the time. And after you're gone, I'd be Mrs. J. B. Books, your widow. I'd be somebody."

"That wouldn't buy you bacon."

"Well, it might." She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "You see, that's how I heard you were ailing bad. There's a newspaper reporter here in El Paso. He tracked me down someways and wrote me to come see him. So I did, this morning, on my way here. He wants to get out a book on you—you know, your life and killings and such—he'd write it and put my name on it—The Shootist: The Life and Bloody Times of J. B. Books, by Serepta Books, His Wife—he says it would sell back East like a house afire. He'd split with me."

He lay back in his chair, away from her. "His name Dobkins?"

"Yes. How'd you know?"

"I kicked him out of here the other day."

"Why?"

"He wanted to do the same thing with me, only in the newspapers. The yellow-shoe son of a bitch. He's a sticker, though. He won't quit."

They were silent. She was gauging him. After a moment she put on a pout.

"I never did understand you, Johnny," she pouted. "I still don't. What's the harm in it? A wedding certificate—a piece of paper."

"I don't object to that. The book I do."

"Why?"

"How much do you know about my life? How much does Dobkins know?"

"Well, two years I do—what a lover you were. And what all you told me. He said whatever we don't know he'll make up. You know, gory things—shoot-'em-ups and midnight rides and women tearing their hair!" She laughed. "Oh, it'll be a corker, Johnny, I promise!"

His look shut her like a door.

"No," he said. "I will not be remembered for a pack of lies."

She had been sure of him, of the natural advantage of the well over the ill. Now she did not know what way to go, whether to try for his soft side or to indict him for a hard heart. She tossed an emotional coin.

"It cost me three dollars for the train here, Johnny," she said, knotting her handkerchief. "One way."

"I'll buy you a ticket back."

"I gave you two years of my life. Can't you help me now, when I need it? My little girls—"

"Yours and Pardee's, not mine."

"But what's so wrong about a book?"

"I may not have much else, woman, but I still have my pride."

"Shit!" She let her anger go. "Pride. You've done enough harm to others in your life—can't you do a good deed for once?"

"So that's why you came to see me."

"I came because I need help!" she cried. "And you could give it and you won't, you're too damn mule-mean, you always were! Why should you care anyway—you're dying! I have to go on living—but you don't give a damn what becomes of me! Why should you? You won't be here!"

She had gone too far. He was considering her. And though eleven years had passed, she remembered: against that silent, terrible appraisal of his, nothing prevailed, neither tears nor accusation nor a bullet. She was frightened. She flung herself from the bed to the floor, she knelt between his legs, she tried to reclaim him with her arms.

"Oh, Johnny, shame on me! I shouldn't have said that! It's just I'm in such bad straits and so alone!"

She had an inspiration. "Johnny dear, I still love you, honest I do! I'd do anything for you!" She pulled his face forward, close to hers, and kissed him on the forehead, on the cheeks. She kissed him on the mouth, moaning passionately, forcing her tongue between his teeth. "Sweetie, there is something I can do for you." With one hand she reached between his legs and began to unbutton his fly. "Are you equal to it, Johnny?"

He groaned. His eyes were closed. Confidence returned, she thrust her hand inside his trousers, through the slit of his underwear, searching for his member. "Where's my gun? Will it still shoot, you old stallion? Wouldn't you like one-last lay? Oh, dearie, I would!"

He fell back in his chair. "Go ahead, Ser—see what you find."

"Find? What?"

"The cancer!" he rasped. "That's where it is! If that's what you want, you whore, I'm full of it!"

"Ohhh!" Revolted, she snatched her hand away, she pushed herself from him, sprawling against the bed, sickened. She got to her feet and backed from him, her face a painted mask of loathing.

"You bastard," she spat.

In impotence, in utter despair, he covered his face with his hands. "My God," he said. "That's all you came for. And once I loved you. God help me."

"You killer."

"Good-by, Ser."

"May you rot to death," she hissed.

"In the closet, my wallet," he said hopelessly, his voice almost inaudible. "Take your three dollars. And good-by."

Marshal Thibido let him out of his cell in the city jail at exactly ten o'clock on Tuesday night. He could have been freed that afternoon, for it was the final day of his sentence for assault, but Thibido was adamant: the wet-ear son of a bitch would serve a full thirty days to the minute.

In the office, he gave him back his two Colt's revolvers and double holster and Cobb belted them on, tying each holster down midway of the thigh with a leather thong.

"Thanks for nothin', Marshal."

"You're not welcome. And they're not loaded. If you want to buy ammunition, you'll have to go work for your dad again. Your credit's no good and nobody else in his right mind would hire you." Thibido paused. "If you want my advice, don't buy any. Head for that wagon instead of a saloon. If you don't, if you go on the way you have been, I will hang you one of these days or somebody by God will."

"Thanks for nothin', Marshal."

Jay Cobb drew the revolvers and extended them, handles forward, as though to surrender them to Thibido. Suddenly, by means of index fingers through the triggerguards, he twirled the weapons, reversing them so that the muzzles pointed at the marshal's waistline.

He grinned. "That there's the Curly Bill Spin, Marshal. Ain't many can do it."

Thibido had recoiled at the trick. He caught relish on the faces of the two deputies who lounged against the wall, enjoying the show. To control himself, he took a deep breath.

"Cobb," he said, "you're no Brocius. He was a good criminal, the real cheese. You're a pimple-faced, short-pudded, yellow-assed kid, and you'll never grow up to be a good criminal because you don't have the brains to."

"These was loaded," Cobb blustered, "you wouldn't mouth me like that."

Thibido nailed hands to hips. "You're contaminating my premises. Take those popguns and your ugly self out of here or I'll telephone J. B. Books and sic him on you."

Jay Cobb did not know how to respond. His mouth opened and closed. He was twenty and ugly. His face had been scarred by acne, and there were swellings on each side of his neck, pustules, some of them open and inflamed. To compensate, he had taken early to guns. He practiced handling and marksmanship regularly down by the river, fanning his Colt's and cutting sunflower stalks in two. Gillom Rogers had spied out his pastime, and in return for secrecy Cobb had let him fire the weapons. Sunflowers grew wild and high in a large patch there—the very patch in which George Scarborough had killed Martin Morose while Morose was on his way from Juárez to confront John Wesley Hardin, who was living with Morose's wife in El Paso. Cobb knew that. He liked learning to use his guns with death nearby for a teacher.

"Old Books," he sneered. "He's dyin'. You call 'im and tell 'im to come see me. I'll hurry his dyin' along."

"So you broke some dude drummer's jaw," said one of the deputies. "You faced anybody killed anybody?"

Cobb's mouth opened and closed.

"Go home before I puke," Thibido said.

Cobb's mouth opened and closed. He looked as though he wanted to kill someone or cry.

"Go home and wash your face," said a deputy.

Jay Cobb did go home, but not to the house beside the creamery. Entering the creamery by a back door and skulking between the separators and churns and stacked milk cans to the sales counter in front, he first reloaded his guns from a Bull Durham bag of ammunition he kept hidden in a drawer. He then opened the tin box in which his father stored the cash receipts before banking them on Fridays. Since quitting school, Jay had driven the delivery wagon and would be expected by his parents, who were meek, scriptural people, to take the route again now that he had been released from jail. Emptying the box of its contents, less than a hundred dollars, he left the building and the odors of milk and cream and butter, as far as he was concerned, forever.

He went directly to Tillie Howard's parlor house on Utah Street, by consensus the most lavish sexorium in town, its girls the most beautiful and expensive. The house was new, made of yellow brick with dormer windows and balconies before the windows on the second story, a circular drive, and a carriage house. He was admitted to the living room, a grand salon of crimson velvet draperies, silk and satin upholstery, oil paintings in gilt frames, cut flowers, and Aubusson rugs. There were few patrons this Tuesday night. Young Cobb whiled away a pleasant hour in the salon, pigging good whiskey and being edified by the staff until he made his selection. Choosing a blond enchantress in her late twenties named Vickie, and a full bottle, he escorted her upstairs to her room and locked the door. He was quite drunk by this time. And he had never kissed a member of the opposite sex other than his mother, much less known one carnally.

After both had disrobed, he took Vickie and bottle to bed, but such was his state of inebriation that he was unable to consummate his desire. Blaming her for his impotence, Cobb flew off the handle. In a demented fury, taking out on the unfortunate girl a marginal intelligence, a repellent exterior, an adolescence spent upon the seat of a creamery wagon, thirty days in jail, and his treatment by the marshal and deputies, he pried open her legs and attempted to rape her with the barrel of one of his Colt's. He tore her labia with the sight. She bled. She screamed. He beat her savagely with his fists.

Summoned by her appeals, the girls flew up the stairs in the wake of Jim, the general factotum of the house, a giant Negro who wore full dress in the evenings. He was nicknamed "Gentleman Jim" after James Corbett, the heavyweight boxing champion only recently deposed by "Fighting Bob" Fitzsimmons. Jim battered down the door of the room and, obtaining Jay Cobb by the neck, dragged him downstairs and hurled him out the door.

He lay naked on the graveled drive while Vickie was ministered to by her colleagues. Presently they gathered in a bevy on a balcony and threw down to him, at him, in addition to expletives of a gender more masculine than feminine, his belongings—underwear, boots, shirt, hat, and eventually his guns. One of these hit him. He came to. Groveling for a revolver, he commenced firing at the balcony. Jay Cobb failed to kill any of the girls, who took refuge behind the balusters, or even to wound one, but he would have if he could have.

"You seem in fine fettle today," she said.

It was the first time she had seen him on the bed during the day.

"I should be," he smiled. He was patently glad to have her for a visitor. "I am full of alcohol and opium."

She approached, glancing at the bottle on the library table. "That's the laudanum." She checked it as closely as she might have an hourglass. "Why, it's nearly gone. Won't you need more? I can telephone the doctor."

"No. That will do."

"Do?"

"It will be enough."

"Oh."

"Sit down, please." He nodded at the armchair beside the bed and changed the subject. "Have you got any new roomers yet?"

She seated herself. "No. And I even ran an ad in the paper."

"That is my fault."

"Perhaps. It's probably the sight-seers across the street, too."

"They still come?"

"Every day. At first I thought they must be the town ne'er-do-wells, but I've recognized some of our best people. Cats can look at kings, you know—alley or pedigreed."

"Thibido said we should let them in and charge admission."

She smiled. "Not very likely. Oh, here, I'm forgetting why I came." She gave him a large envelope. "From Mr. Skelly."

He opened the envelope and eased out an eight-by-ten photograph. He stared at it.

"My God," he said.

She rose to look over his shoulder.

"My God," he said. "That's not me."

There he was, posed formally, standing against the flowered wallpaper, shoulders squared, hands in trousers pockets pulling back the lapels of the Prince Albert coat sufficiently to afford a glimpse of what hung in holsters on each side of the vest. And there they were, black handle and pearl, enough of each to titillate posterity. He was a man of medium height. At the temples his brown hair was slashed with gray, as was the mustache which drooped at the comers of his mouth. But it was the face which shocked him. Fine-featured in health, it had been as ravaged by disease as had his body. It was cachectic. The skin, gray of cast, was racked taut over the skull, bringing into hideous prominence the bones of forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. The eyes were sunken, so that it was impossible to tell what they considered, whether an enemy, a straight flush, or the advent of a civilization in which he must be anachronous.

"This is what I look like," he said, appalled.

"It must have been the artificial light," she consoled, sitting again. "And perhaps the paper, too. I'm accustomed to tintypes."

Books continued to study it. After a minute he opened the drawer of the library table, found a pencil, turned the portrait over, wrote on the back, and gave it to her.

"For you. Such as it is. It may be worth something someday."

"Why, how kind. I'm sure it will be. But isn't there someone else you'd rather give it to?"

"No."

She turned the portrait over. "For Mrs. Rogers with regards," he had written, and signed it "John Bernard Books."

She did not trust herself to speak.

"I am sorry about the candy dish," he said. "I was feeling low, and gave it a good heave. I have smashed a lot of things in my life."

"It's—it's all right."

"No. I said I would not be a burden to you. So I have shot two men in this room and chased your roomers away and smashed some glassware already. Hostetler said one morning I will wake up and not be able to get out of bed. Well, I promise not to let it go that far."

She got hold of herself. "I was delighted to see you had a lady caller yesterday. She asked me not to announce her—she wanted to surprise you. Were you surprised?"

"I was." He looked at her with a measure of amusement. "That's another thing about cats."

"What?"

"Curiosity kills them."

"If you think—"

"Her name is Serepta Thomas," he proceeded. "I lived with her for a time, eleven years ago. She left me for a freighter."

"Did you love her?"

"I did then. Now she is down and out. She asked me to marry her."

"She asked you?"

"Yes."

"Did she know about—I mean—"

"Yes. That was why she asked me. She wanted my name. And what money she could raise from it. Dobkins, the reporter, tracked her down in Tucson and had her come see me. He has a notion to write a book about me full of lies and put her name on it. Mrs. J. B. Books."

"That is despicable!" exclaimed Bond Rogers.

"No worse than the others. I am doing a land-office business these days. Skelly will be selling those pictures of me, and the undertaker intends to lay me out and show me to the public. For a price."

She was aghast. "You don't—you can't be serious!"

"I am."

"That is the most morbid, depraved—"

"There is one consolation. I am going to be a damn sight more popular dead than I have been alive."

She shook her head. "Men. And women, too. I don't know what the world is coming to. Let's not talk about it."

"All right."

The day was clouded, the room gloomy, the silence between them loud.

"How is the boy?" he asked.

"I've lost all control of him, frankly. Selling your horse was not only the most unprincipled thing he's ever done, it was actually criminal. I am stumped." She had forgotten how comforting it could be to talk to a man. It was a luxury she had been denied of late, and she let her words spill. "I can't discipline him, I can't afford to send him away, and if he doesn't soon reform himself, I can't tolerate living with him. I scarcely recognize Gillom as my son any more. He's a stranger to me. What would you do?"

"I told you. If you can, give him another father. The sooner the better."

She stirred. She longed to ask what had happened between them over the sale of the horse, in this room after she had left them together, but she did not dare. Guilt flooded her cheeks. She could not clear her mind's eye of Gillom in the parlor, on his knees, sobbing at the loss of a second father, nor exculpate herself for having been the one to tell him, to tell the secret with which she had been entrusted by a dying man.

"That's something else I would prefer not to discuss," she said, too sharply.

"Fair enough."

She was miserable. She cast about for a way to make amends. "There is a matter I've been meaning to say something about, Mr. Books." She resolved to be generous yet impersonal. "When you came, after you rented a room, I called you an 'assassin.' I regret that. I've thought about it a great deal. I realize now—the night those men came in the windows—they were here to kill you, and you had to defend yourself, anyone would. I mean, I realize now—this is how it must have been many times—you did not provoke the quarrels—men have always wanted to kill you. So I misused the word— I apologize—it is something about which I know very little— I have been sheltered—I never—"

She was in obvious distress. "By the way, Mrs. Rogers," he interjected, "my clothes are pretty roady. I would be much obliged if you could brush and press my coat and trousers. I will pay you for the time."

"Oh no," she demurred, thankful for the rescue. "I'd enjoy doing it. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have then cleaned?"

"Cleaned?"

"Yes, there's a new method now, called 'dry process cleaning.' We have several shops in El Paso."

"How long would it take?"

"They advertise next-day service. And the clothing looks like new—it's miraculous. Why don't you let me have them now? I'll take them over myself, and you'll have them back tomorrow."

"I suppose I could," he said. "I am not going out. But I don't see—"

She sprang up, coloring. "I was leaving anyway. I'll stand outside, and you hand them to me through the door."

"Very well."

Taking the portrait, she left the room and held the door ajar. Under his breath he cursed himself for requiring so long to get off the bed, get out of his trousers, get his coat from the closet, get to the door.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're very welcome."

As soon as the door closed, Books put a hand in the envelope on the bed, found the photographer's fifty dollars, and cached it in the top drawer of the chiffonier. He went then slowly, in dread, to the washbowl, to the mirror to which he had traded himself for his image every day while shaving. The man in the glass and the man in the portrait could not be one and the same. Either the mirror or the camera had cheated him. He stared.

The mirror had.

He heard the front door open, and Gillom Rogers, drunk perhaps, stumble up the stairs. It was well after midnight.

He thought: I would give anything to have her here, to talk to her. If only I had met her eleven years ago instead of Serepta. But it is too late to love her or let her love me. I am coming to the end of my rope. Besides, it would not be love on her part. It would be pity. I will be damned before I accept pity, from her or anybody.

He took up his newspaper. Except for the advertisements, there was little in it he had not read by now. One of these interested him. He read it twice:

Sweet Cream,

Cream for coffee,

Cream for oatmeal,

Cream for applesass,

Cream for ice cream.

I am now delivering cream on

my wagon guaranteed with proper

care to keep 24 hours after

delivery. Telephone 156.

G. A. COBB

Proprietor, Missouri Dairy

A man named Steinmetz called on him the next day. He was shabbily dressed and spoke with an accent. He owned and operated an oddment emporium on San Antonio Street and might buy, he said, anything of a personal nature Books wished to sell, provided the asking price was not "oudlandish." Books had him get his black valise from the closet and appraise the contents. There was a shirt, spare underwear, two pairs of socks, several handkerchiefs, a set of gold cuff links, and a bottle of hair tonic, in addition to the valise itself.

"Dis iss all?"

"That is all."

"But you are a man of middle age. To haf lived your life —to haf nuzzing—"

"I traveled light."

"Zo."

"I have a watch." He handed it over. "And my shaving things—razor, brush, mug. But I will need them."

"You could now sell dem to me," said Steinmetz. "You could a bill of sale sign, und I would get dem lader."

Books pulled at an end of his mustache. "And I would have the money now?"

"Vy nod?"

"How much?"

Steinmetz calculated. "Ten dollars?"

"Hell no. Fifty."

"Too much."

"That's a good watch. Gold case and a real diamond. And it is J. B. Books's watch. It will fetch double for that reason, and so will the rest, and you know it."

"Twenty dollars?"

"Fifty. For the lot."

"Some guns you haf."

"They are not for sale."

"Thirty?"

"Fifty."

Steinmetz rose. "Goot day, Mr. Books." He bowed and left the room.

Seconds later someone knocked.

It was Steinmetz, hat in hand. "It iss true—you are dying, Mr. Books?"

"I am."

The secondhand man shook his head. He seemed on the verge of tears. "To haf lived zo long—to haf zo liddle. I am Chewish. I am a stranger in dis Texas, among too many goyim. I haf nod long from the Old Coundry come, but a wife I haf, und two sons, und my store, und already some land, und money in the bank. Yes, I will fifty dollars gif you."

Books looked out a window. He did not know whether to be offended by the comparison or gratified by the price. Part of that price was pity, he was sure—and he had sworn only last night not to accept it from anybody. Pain blurred his thinking. He wanted the fifty dollars desperately. It was not too dear for his possessions, but it assigned a pitifully low value to his pride. He swallowed it. "Sold," he said.

He thought: Day after tomorrow.

Squatting, staring fixedly at the noble Indian on the wall who sat astride his pony and surveyed a wilderness with sorrowful mien, he strained, hoping the row of china cherubs along the rim of the slop-jar would strike up their harps in happy paean to his ability to piss. They did not. His bladder cramped. He was past the point of simple strangury. He could no longer urinate at all.

He thought: Day after tomorrow. I have difficulty walking now. My lower back will not allow me to sit or stand more than a spell. This was the first day I could not shave myself. Tonight, when she brought my supper tray, I was not hungry. I can't take anything in at one end or let loose of anything at the other. So, if I intend to go out with my boots on instead of in a stinking sickbed, it is day after tomorrow. The laudanum should see me through till then. If I asked Hostetler for more, it would be a temptation to hang on. Besides, I have started getting ready. When the solid citizens of El Paso line up to gawp at me, they will have their money's worth. Beckum will put a mean look on my phiz and my clothes will be cleaned by dry process. Now for the next step. A clean cadaver.

Taking a towel and washcloth, he went to the door, opened it, listened. The house was still. She would be asleep at this hour, the boy would be over on Utah Street going to hell as fast as he was able.

He limped along the dark hall to the bathroom, turned on a light, and ran hot water into the tub. When it was half full he tempered it with cold, then leaned against a wall to extricate himself from his longjohns, then bending, both hands on the edges of the tub, somehow got into it and groaning, lowered himself until he could sit submerged to the waist.

There was soap in a rack, and he washed himself where he could reach. The heat of the water seemed to allay the pain, was pleasing, in fact, to his genitals. He sank back, enjoying the sensation. But when he sat up, the bath had weakened him. Try as he might, he was unable to pull himself into a squat. He was helpless. He whimpered.

"Bond," he whimpered.

She would not hear him, he was trapped, far from his room and his drug. He would sit in the tub until he roared in agony like a bear.

"Bond!" he yelled in panic. "Bond!"

A sound on the ceiling, her springing out of bed, and in another moment he could follow her rapid footsteps down the stairs.

The door opened. She wore a flannel bathrobe. Her hair was up in rag curlers. "What in the world?"

"I can't get out."

"John, why in heaven's name didn't you ask me to help in the first place?"

"Because God damn it I can take my own bath!"

"Obviously you can't."

"I didn't want you to see me."

"Do you think I haven't seen a man before?"

"Hell."

"Have you washed your back?"

"How in hell could I?"

"Men are such infants." She came to the tub and soaped the washcloth. "Now lean forward."

"Hell."

"And stop swearing."

"Well, you haven't seen a man with cancer before."

"I have now." She scrubbed his back retributively. "Are you in pain?"

"All the time now."

"You should have told me you wanted a bath."

"I said I would not be a burden to you."

"Hush."

She pulled the stopper, laid a hand towel on the tub bottom so that he could stand securely on it and, bustling, bringing a large towel, dried his upper body. "Now, take my hands. I'll pull you up."

"Don't look at me."

Together, adding her strength to what remained of his, they got him into a crouch, then upright, and she assisted him out, wrapping him in the towel.

"We'll leave your underwear here," she said. "I'll wash it tonight and hang it and it'll be dry by morning. Now, put your arm around my waist. I'll help you back to bed."

They swayed down the hall, into his room. She laid back the covers, removed the towel and when he had sat down and stretched out, covered him again.

"The laudanum," he muttered.

She uncapped and handed it to him, and he drank. "Bond, stay with me a bit," he begged. "Till the stuff works."

"All right."

She sat down in the armchair beside him. The only light was a faintness emanating from the bathroom through the open door. They could scarcely see each other's faces.

"Ah, God," he sighed after a time.

"Better now?"

"Yes."

So quiet was it in the room that she could hear the ticking of his watch on the library table.

"I have come to a sad state of affairs," he said abruptly. "Just last night I told myself I would not take pity from anybody. Now I take anything they will give."

The rag curlers occurred to her. She began to untie them. "John."

"What?"

"You are getting ready—to do something, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Having your things cleaned. Taking a bath. Letting the laudanum run down."

"I wish I had met you years ago."

"Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"It would be useless for me to inquire what."

"It would."

"You frighten me. I suppose I'd be more frightened if I knew."

"I will say this much. My life has not amounted to a damn-all. Maybe my death will."

"I see. May I ask a favor of you?"

"You may ask."

"Before you—before you do whatever it is—will you see my minister for a few minutes?"

"Why?"

"It may be that—that he can give you some comfort, some understanding. Some peace."

"I doubt it."

"It's possible. Will you for my sake? I want to do everything I can for you."

"You have done enough."

Suddenly she slipped from the chair and knelt and laid her head beside him.

"Oh, John, I will mourn for you!" she whispered. "You believe no one will—but I will! I'll remember your strength and your goodness and courage! I'll remember always!"

She was crying. He moved his fingers in her hair. "I will talk with the reverend," he said. "Provided you do one more thing for me."

"Anything!"

"Day after tomorrow," he said. "When you see me then, in my Sunday duds, there will be no tears."

She thought of armed men coming through these windows into darkness, of explosions like blows upon the door of doom, of blood staining her carpet and, soon, her heart. She shuddered.

"No tears, Bond."

"I promise."

"Day after tomorrow."

Unshaven, shirtless, in clean underwear and trousers cleaned by dry process, seated on his crimson pillow, Books received them.

"This is the Reverend Henry New, Mr. Books," she said. "Reverend, J. B. Books."

They shook hands.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Books."

"Likewise."

"I'll leave you gentlemen now," Bond Rogers said. "It was kind of you to come, Reverend."

"It was my duty, Mrs. Rogers. Thank you for the opportunity."

When she had gone, Henry New took the straight chair. "How are you feeling today, Mr. Books?"

"As well as can be expected."

"I'm pleased to hear it. And I was sincere with Mrs. Rogers. I'm truly pleased to have an opportunity to meet a man of your—your distinction. A 'shootist'? I think that's the polite term."

"'Killer' usually."

"Well, now that's somewhat crude. I'm sure you prefer 'shootist.' It has an elegance."

Books was unresponsive.

"A fine woman, Mrs. Rogers."

Books made a church of his fingers.

"She tells me you are—very ill."

"I am dying."

"I see. I regret profoundly to hear it. But you are not a young man. We can at least rejoice that God has granted you a fairly full measure. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.'"

Books had expected an older man, a Bible-bouncer, a deacon who would rant and roar and stomp the floor and take an errant soul by the scruff of the neck and throw it through the Pearly Gates as though they were swinging doors. That was the kind of preacher with whom he could cope, and from whom he might indeed gain a brimstone solace. To his dismay, Bond Rogers had sent him a ringer—a man not a day over thirty-two or -three, a bright-eyed, apple-checked, razor-brained whippersnapper first in his class at divinity school who could draw from the Old Testament as fast as he, Books, could draw from his vest. He groaned inwardly. The last slug of laudanum was wearing off. He did not feel equal to the Reverend Henry New this morning.

"Do you believe in a life after death, Mr. Books?"

"I don't know."

"In a Heaven? In a Hell?"

"I don't know."

Henry New nodded. He seemed satisfied. "I confess to a certain perplexity in these matters myself. But of one thing I am positive. I know that God exists. I may not be a religionist, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, but I know, as surely as I know we sit here, that He exists, that I am His servant upon this earth, and that His wisdom is infinite. I prayed for you this morning, Mr. Books."

"Much obliged."

"As soon as Mrs. Rogers telephoned, I went to my study. I prayed, first, that God Our Father look with compassion upon His wayward son, John Bernard Books, and forgive his sins, and take him soon into that fold to which all men, great and small, aspire. That—"

"Sins?"

"I had reference to the killings."

"Hold on, Reverend. I have been in a tight or two, but they were not of my making."

His visitor raised a deprecatory hand. "Let us not debate the past, Mr. Books. My concern today is the future. I prayed this morning, second, for divine guidance. It struck me that with Mrs. Rogers' call I had been granted a unique opportunity. A man nearing his end, a man whose name was synonymous with profligacy and destruction—was there not some way his demise might be used for holy purposes? I prayed for vision, for a sign from Him. And suddenly the scales fell from my eyes! Eureka!" The minister's eyes burned like candles. "I went immediately to my desk, Mr. Books. I wrote as though Another's hand directed my pen!" From an inner pocket of his coat he whisked a folded paper. "Here!"

"What is it?"

"A statement from J. B. Books. To be read from every pulpit in the land. A testimonial to the mercy of Almighty God. Here, sir, read it."

Books would not take the paper. "No. You tell me the particulars."

An annoyed Henry New twisted in his chair. "Well, it's brief, and to the point and if I do say so myself, eloquently phrased. In the main, it—"

Books scowled. "The particulars."

"Very well. You repent your misdeeds. You beg the Lord's forgiveness." With each sentence he tapped the paper impatiently on a knee. "In the main, you address yourself to the younger generation of this country. You exhort them to profit by your example. To take the high road rather than the low. To practice continence, cultivate humility, love virtue. To turn the other cheek rather than resort to violence. To bear in mind that it is the meek, not the proud, who shall inherit the earth. Et cetera. Can you not appreciate how effective such a document might be among the younger, lawless element of our population?" He lowered his voice confidentially. "If a Gillom Rogers, for example, were to hear it, and to heed its lesson? I need go no further." He proffered the paper a second time. "I urge you to read and sign it, Mr. Books."

"No."

"What? You will not? Why not, sir?"

"Because it is a pile of shit."

Henry New's apple cheeks ripened. "I beg your pardon!"

"I never sit with my back to a door," Books added. "And I will not sign anything I do not believe in."

Frowning, the minister bit at a fingernail. "I can't believe you understand the consequences of refusal, Mr. Books. I have offered you a last chance to attest to the glory of God, to be an instrument of His will. To give your imminent death meaning."

"Meaning." Books grimaced. "The last two weeks every son of a bitch who walked into this room wanted something different out of my death. I am sick and tired of it."

"Ah, but you cannot ignore it!" countered the minister. "With every passing hour it becomes more prudent of you to lift your eyes unto the hills. Should you reconsider, and sign, I can practically guarantee your ultimate redemption."

Books's agony overwhelmed him. The last dose of the drug he had taken only a half hour earlier, and he was damned if he would exhibit his need for another, no matter how dire, before this bunkum artist.

"On the other hand," New warned, "should you persist in refusal, I tremble to predict the outcome. I caution you, sir —the fate of your very soul may be at stake. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.'"

Books could scarcely sit still. His spine cracked. The poison in his system suffused his limbs with heat. He wanted to whimper, to howl, or to take the piss-ant parson over his lap and spank the sanctimony out of him. His fingers tugged at the pillow tassels between his legs. "I will take my chances," he choked. "At least I will see my cards sooner than you—and I will bet my hand is as good as yours."

The Reverend New tucked away his statement and ascended from his seat. "Sir, I did not come here to be insulted by a man of your ilk."

"No—you came here to comfort me—like hell you did! You came here full of opportunity and crap!"

New proceeded to the door. He turned. To his astonishment, to his almost sensual pleasure, Books's cheeks were wet. The minister permitted himself a tremor of self-esteem.

If he had not beaten the assassin at his own game of bluff and threat, if he had not cast this Devil Incarnate into the pit of contrition, he had at least reduced him to tears.

"You are lost, Mr. Books," he sniffed. "I wash my hands of you."

"Oh, Preacher," cried his archenemy, "if I had my strength, wouldn't I boot your hypocritical ass out of here!"

"Piffle." New adjusted his tie, regarding with infinite contempt the shambles of a man who sat playing with the tassels of a pillow. "Good morning, sir. I leave you to your alcohol and opium."

"And my death!" Books sobbed. "You leave my death to me!"

He sobbed to himself. Henry New had gone.

He thought: Tomorrow.

It had taken him two hours and two long pulls at the laudanum bottle and two chasers of whiskey to recover from the minister's visit. He knew now that he was very near the bottom of the well, both physically and emotionally. The disease, the pain, the confinement, the loneliness, had finally undone him. He could no longer trust that steel self upon whom he had relied, in a pinch, for so many haphazard years. It must be tomorrow. And in the early afternoon he sent for Gillom Rogers.

"Close the door."

Gillom closed it, staring at the man on the bed. He had not seen Books for days. He had never seen such a face.

"Tell me. Which is the best saloon in El Paso? I mean, the one with the most class."

"That's easy. The Connie."

"Connie?"

"The Constantinople. It's brand new. Oh, it's jim dandy. They really spent the spondulix on that one."

"All right. Now tell me something else. Do you know a man named Pulford?"

"Sure. Runs the faro layout at Keating's.. They say he's sent a couple to Kingdom Come. Is he slick, is he fast. Wouldn't I like to see him and Jay Cobb go to it, though."

"What about Cobb?"

"Jay? He's a pal of mine. He's hiding out now, but I know where."

"Hiding out?"

"I'll say. Thibido let him out of the juzgado the other night. He went to Tillie Howard's and got drunk and hurt one of her girls and got thrown out and then tried to gun down the rest of the girls. Thibido's looking for him. He won't bring him in on his feet, though, not Jay." Gillom's ears itched now. "Why?"

"Is there somebody named Serrano?"

"Cross-eye? What a plug-ugly he must be. Rustles cattle. I've never set eyes on him, but I think he hangs out across the river. Say, what's this all about?"

"I want you to do something for me. Pulford, Cobb, Serrano. Find them. Go to each one and tell him I will be in the Constantinople at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Hey." Gillom sat down on the edge of the straight chair. "Hey."

"Just don't mention to any of them I have invited the others. And don't tell anybody else."

"Oh my God." Gillom hugged himself with excitement. "I get it. Oh Jesus."

"Four o'clock. Do they know about me?"

"That you're a goner? Everybody in town does. Jesus!" Gillom jumped up, tangled his large feet, and fell happily against the chiffonier. "I get it! They save you the trouble of doing yourself in! They do it for you! Oh, that's a peach!"

"The Constantinople."

Gillom propped an elbow on the chest. "O.K. I'll do it. Might not be easy tracking Cross-eye down, but I will, you bet. Say, what do I get for this?"

"What do you want?"

"You know."

"Well?"

Gillom licked his lips rather than chewing them. He liked the taste of himself much better now. "I want your guns."

"No."

"No? Then send somebody else. Send Thibido. Send my ma. You've got no choice."

"Don't ask for my guns."

"I ain't asking, I'm telling. I could take 'em right this minute, and you couldn't lift a finger. So it's the guns or go to hell, Mister J. B. Books. Or lay here and die by yourself. Or go over to the Connie and scare those hard cases to death. With your face, you could."

Books closed his eyes. "All right. They're yours. Later."

"Damn right they are. About five minutes past four tomorrow. Maybe not even that long."

"Hop to it, then," Books said. "And don't job me, boy."

Gillom grinned. "I won't. I wouldn't miss the looks on their faces. Oh Jesus."

The day warmed.

That afternoon he opened the windows and let warm wind blow the curtains and heard again the wheels of the streetcar as it passed the corner.

Two sweating men in dungarees delivered the headstone from Beckum, the undertaker. It was covered by a canvas, and Books was careful that Bond Rogers admitted the men and left the room before he uncovered it. The marble seemed to be of good quality, and the inscription had been cut as specified: "John Bernard Books 1849-1901." He had the draymen place it against the wall and when they had gone draped it with his Prince Albert coat so that she would not see it.

He then brought his Remingtons and bullets from the closet and, lying on the bed, cleaned the guns and reloaded, filling the sixth chamber in each.

Gillom entered, without knocking, just before suppertime, and found him asleep, Remingtons beside him. He tiptoed to the bed but no sooner had the youth picked up one of the guns than Books awoke. He put out a hand. Gillom gave him the weapon.

"Not yet," Books said.

"Not long," Gillom said.

Books pushed a pillow upright behind his shoulders. "Well?"

"I told them."

"What did they say?"

"Pulford nothing. Jay nothing. I had to go across the river to Juárez to find Serrano. He's got a wife and a whole litter of kids—they were crawling all over the place. I told him the Connie, four o'clock tomorrow. Then I got out of there fast." Gillom frowned. "The thing is, none of 'em said a word. I don't know if they'll really show."

"They'll show."

"Who says?"

"They are small men."

"Small hell. They're fast. I know for a fact Jay and Pulford are, and Cross-eye's mean as sin."

"One deals. One drives a creamery wagon. One rustles cattle. They are small potatoes, and this is the best chance they will ever have to be big. They will show."

"Maybe."

"Now you can do two more things for me."

"Not for you. For the guns."

"Send me a barber in the morning. And shine my boots tonight."

In the moonlight through the windows he squinted at his watch, the watch he had already sold to Steinmetz. It was after one o'clock.

He thought: Today.

He pulled on the lamp, drank from the laudanum bottle, and estimated three fingers remained. It would see him through, although it afforded him only the most fleeting respite now. He had not urinated for thirty-six hours, and he had slept this night, fitfully, in the leather armchair for fear he would be incapable of getting out of bed in the morning.

He took up the Daily Herald for Tuesday, January 22, 1901, the day he had ridden into El Paso. The paper was dry and brittle. He had read everything in this edition, all eight pages, every news story, every advertisement, every joke, every line of filler. For once he had got the whole good out of a newspaper. For lack of anything else to do, he reread an item on the front page in the column centered under the great black headlines:

London, Jan. 22—The Privy Council has drawn up the proclamation announcing the accession of Edward Prince of Wales, to the throne. The royal apartments in Buckingham Palace are being made ready for the reception of the court. Members of Parliament are arranging to meet in special session. The funeral arrangements are planned. The theaters are scheduled to close for at least a week. Dressmakers and ladies' tailors are fairly swamped with orders countermanding colored costumes and ordering mourning gowns. Hatters are laying in a big stock of deep hatbands. Stationers are getting mourning edge stationery. Drapers are being employed, and all are rushed with work. Orders have been prepared prescribing the period of mourning for all the official departments, the diplomatic and consular service, and the army and navy at home and abroad.

He folded the newspaper and placed it on the rack under the library table.

He thought: Well, Victoria, Your Royal Highness, old lady, old girl, we are about to get together. I will not make as big a splash as you did. I do not expect they will sell much drape, but there may be a minute of silence in the saloons. I have never read what a man is supposed to do when he is presented to you. Kiss your hand, I imagine. But you will know a gent when you meet him, you will recognize blood as blue in a way as yours. I will show you my guns, if you like, and we will drink tea and talk. You were the last of your kind, and they say, Dobkins and Thibido, that I am the last of mine, so we have a hell of a lot in common. I see by the paper they have made a smart of money out of you turning up your toes. Well, they are trying to do the same with me. Your life meant considerable, I guess, and mine did not, but maybe my death will. We will see shortly. Maybe we did outlive our time, maybe the both of us did belong in a museum—but we hung onto our pride, we never sold our guns, and they will tell of the two of us that we went out in style. So today, old girl, a hair after four o'clock, at the palace. You be dressed in your best bib and tucker, Vickie, and so will I.

Deciding to drink to his impending audience with the Queen, he groaned himself out of the chair to the closet, opened the bottle, changed his mind, and poured the last of the whiskey into the washbowl. He would let today stand on its own two legs.

As he sat down again, the pain receding, the third line of the poem recited itself to him: "For he on honey-dew hath fed…"

He thought: Oh, I have fed on honey-dew. On wine and whiskey and champagne and the tender white meat of women and fine clothes and the respect of strong men and the fear of weak and the turn of a card and good horses and the crisp of greenbacks and the cool of mornings and all the elbow room that God or man could ask for. I have had high times. But the best times of all were afterward, just afterward, with the gun warm in my hand, the bite of smoke in my nose, the taste of death on my tongue, my heart high in my gullet, the danger past, and then the sweat, suddenly, and the nothingness, and the sweet clean feel of being born.